15-year-old slain after 2 pull guns at house party

June 14, 2010

Denise Jones holds a picture of her slain son Kevin Jones today at her home in Chicago. Her son Kenneth Jones, 20, is to her right. Kevin was shot and killed after a fight broke out early Sunday at a party in the Gresham neighborhood on the South Side. (Zbigniew Bzdak/Tribune)

Kevin Jones ran for cover when at least two guests at a weekend party pulled handguns.

Crouching beneath a window, the 15-year-old thought the danger had passed when the guests stormed out of the apartment in the Gresham neighborhood. But as he stood up, Kevin was hit by a bullet fired from the street and he dropped to the floor, according to a witness and a source.

"He was a good person," his mother, Denise Jackson Jones, told WGN-Ch. 9. "Never really got into trouble. When are they going to learn?"

Jones was a 9th-grader at Harper High School and a member of the freshmen football and basketball teams.

"Let people know, it's got to stop," said Jones' aunt, Victoria Jones-Newell. "What has to happen for this to stop? Does it have to be the end of the world for it to end?"

She pleaded for the boy's killer to surrender to police. "Please turn yourself in because this family is hurt and we want justice," she said. "Maybe if they're off the street, there's one less person that might get shot."

Community activist Andrew Holmes said a $1,000 reward is being offered for information leading to an arrest. "We are asking parents who knew their children who were at this gathering" to call police with any information about who might have had a gun or who fired the shots, he said.

Kevin and several friends were at the party in the 7800 block of South Carpenter Street when the fight broke out early Sunday, according to a witness and a police source.

Police responded at about 2:15 a.m. and found Jones -- of the 6800 block of South Wood Street -- wounded. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead at 2:56 a.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.